I highly recommend H is for Heroin, which is a guide to the dangers of heroin for heroin users. In particular check out page 23, with its tips to avoid overdosing.

In EMS we often have the opportunity to educate our patients and to intervene at critical moments. Patients who have suffered one overdose are at the highest risk for suffering a fatal overdose. We may revive a patient who does not wish to be transported to the hospital, or even in the cases of patients who do, we can employ the concepts of harm reduction, to help gain a foothold toward eventually making a difference.

Ask your patient:

Do you know where to get clean needles? Never share a needle with someone else.

Do you have Narcan? If not, do you know how and where to get it?

Don’t do heroin alone. Have Narcan readily available for your friend to use on you or you on your friend.

If you haven’t used for awhile (You are just out of prison or rehab or a period of abstinence), do a smaller amount because you no longer have the tolerance you did and you may overdose.

The heroin out on the street today may contain Fentanyl or even Carfentail, a drug used to tranquilize elephants. If you are going to use an unfamiliar batch, do a small amount to start. You can always do more later.

Be careful mixing heroin with benzos or alcohol.

If someone overdoses call 911. Unless you are dealing drugs on the scene, you are immune from prosecution.

If you are ready for help, here’s a toll-free number you can call:

In Connecticut – 1-800-563-4086.

Your life has value. You can’t recover if you are dead.

Not everyone will hear the message, but some will. The message we give to one user, that user may pass on to another user, who will then be saved, even the original user succumbs.

Just as we don’t save all of our cardiac arrest patients, we will lose many of our heroin patients, but every life we save should be celebrated. We should never stop trying.

It may not be as dramatic as defibrillating a fifty year old who has just collapsed in v-fib cardiac arrest, or applying cpap to a patient in flash pulmonary edema, but never underestimate the power of words and of fundamental kindness to save another human being.

Harm reduction troops, carry on. Many of us in EMS are learning to walk your path.

Here’s a link to the local Harm Reduction Coalition in Greater Hartford.

Cat CampYou gave her 20 Milligrams?!!I never even knew EMS could give a "transporting patient" any pain meds at all. Guess you can tell Ive Never (Thank God) had to be transorted in a rescue before. That is until recently, Jan 8, 2018. I slipped and dislocated my shoulder!!! The Pain was unbearable!! I pray I never experience that pain…
2018-02-10 09:08:03

Barbara WrightAngry Snowman: Naloxone RefusalsBIG CITY MEDIC, amazing how you tear down the attempts of someone trying to save a life at the time or the future. I would have fought for the user to go to the hospital. Big City Medic would lead me to believe you are becoming big city hardened
2018-02-06 19:45:34

NateNaloxone in Cardiac Arrest"What drug do you give?" is a trick question. In cardiac arrest of any cause, the one proven benefit to survival is CPR. Good CPR is a rarity. Most is middling. Second, in VF/VT arrest, the only thing that changes is defibrillation, after good CPR. The rest of ACLS has a paucity of data. It's…
2018-02-05 04:35:24

JordanMother and SonDrug overdoses are normally the ones you get back. So always especially difficult when you don’t. Only a recently qualified Paramedic and haven’t had to deliver bad news as of yet. Dreading the day I do.
2018-01-25 13:45:09